Online Social anxiety Cognitive therapy for Adolescents (OSCA)
Effective NHS treatment for young people with social anxiety exists but it's difficult to access for a number of reasons. This is partly because social anxiety is really common, and also because we only have a limited number of therapists available. Our research has focused on how we can help young people with social anxiety access effective treatment more easily. Working closely with young people, we have developed a therapist-assisted internet-delivered therapy that we call OSCA based on an existing adult treatment iCT-SAD (1 Recommendations | Digitally enabled therapies for adults with anxiety disorders: early value assessment | Guidance | NICE). Young people complete modules and try out exercises in their own time. This means that the treatment can be delivered with less demand on services whilst still providing young people with support all through their treatment with OSCA. OSCA was recently provisionally recommended for use in the NHS in the NICE eva guidance.
